


Valkorion

by Elveny



Series: Feels like Destiny [4]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 05:19:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8476858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elveny/pseuds/Elveny
Summary: Wild Space





	1. Arriving in Wild Space

Jiune would have recognized the Emperor’s energy amongst thousands. If anyone would have asked her just a few days ago, she’d say it would terrify her to feel it again but now that she actually was here, the terror she had feared never came. Rather, it was a relief to finally be here. She straightened, standing next to Darth Marr, her fingers clenching into a fist. ‘Take your fear and make it a weapon’, Scourge had said and it seemed that somehow, in between nightmares and meditations and training and loving she had managed to do it. This time, she wouldn’t let him get away.

That was the plan at least.

She hadn’t expected a whole fleet to intercept them. Nobody of them had expected that. But it wasn’t until the ship started to break apart that the possibility of not surviving even crossed her mind. She had managed to survive everything - the Emperor, Revan, Ziost - was this, a nameless fleet, really the end? Before she could even try to face the Emperor again?

The contact with the Bridge severed and Marr cursed.

“There are rudimentary backup controls here, but the enemy ships have us surrounded. We have few options left”, Marr said.

For a long dark second, Jiune closed her eyes. Even while the sparks were flying through the air, explosions and shots not quite drowning out the groaning of the bulkheads and the hull as it slowly ripped open, she didn’t want to accept this as the end. ‘I’m sorry, Theron’, she thought, a wave of overwhelming sadness crashing against her, then she opened her eyes again. If this was the end, she would face it her own way.

“Then let’s take as many with us as we can”, she said very calmly and she could feel Darth Marr’s approval. “Agreed”, he said and they set the command for an intercept course. Just before the explosion, Jiune thought of something she had once written to Shiwon: _Let’s not die on each other again, okay?_ It seemed like she wasn’t able to keep her end of the bargain after all. Without thinking about it, she gripped Marr’s arm, feeling the need to physically know _someone_ was here with her, now, in the end. But she didn’t look at him.

She awoke in a bunk bed.

For a few seconds she was only confused. Why was she still here? How? She didn’t remember being captured, but apart from a major headache, she felt physically fine. Carefully she tested her limbs, finding that she could actually move - and that she was restrained. Huge cuffs were strapped around her wrists, emanating a small energy field that seemed to restrict her abilities to use the Force. She concentrated and tested their abilities until she was sure that she was strong enough to overcome them should the need arise. But where was she?

Suddenly, she realized how strong the Emperor’s presence was and she gasped for air. It was as if he was everywhere around her - but localized at the same time. She sat up. No. This was nothing like her nightmare. But he was close, that much was sure.

A figure came towards her out of the shadows. “You’ve awakened.” The man in the mask sounded somewhat surprised. “I trust you can walk.”

Jiune knitted her eyebrows. “What is this place?”

“My flagship. You have arrived at the heart of our empire. Come along.”

They did not wait until she stood up but pushed a weapon in her side to force her up.

They met Darth Marr and his guards at the door. So he was alive as well. Good. “What ‘empire’ have we entered?” he asked but his menacing presence did not make the masked man even flinch.

“The Eternal Empire. Zakuul.” The masked man seemed to dismiss Marr from his attention and continued on his way before he stopped again, as if a thought had struck him.

“You didn’t even know what empire you were invading?”

Jiune held his gaze. “We didn’t ‘invade’ anything. We were looking for someone.” She refrained from telling him who.

“In an armed warship?” She could hear the disbelief in his voice but Jiune didn’t back down.

“We weren’t looking for a friend”, she said with a cool smile.

“What did you hope to achieve by taking us prisoner?” Darth Marr interjected impatiently.

“I have questions. You will provide the answer.”

“We will tell you nothing.” Marr’s voice was low and dangerous but the masked man seemed unperturbed. He was either very stupid or very sure of himself.

“You won’t have to speak to give me the answers I need.”

He brought them to a shuttle which was when Jiune heard his title. Prince Arcann. Prince? She tried not to spring to any conclusions but it was hard when they had entered an empire looking for an Emperor.

Her suspicions seemed to be confirmed when Arcann, after his little fight with a soothsayer, as Marr called him, said:

“I’m taking you to my father. Valkorion. The Immortal Emperor of Zakuul.”

“An Emperor. Just what we were searching for”, Marr said, mirroring Jiune’s thoughts.

“You will not find what you wanted here”, Arcann answered. But he was wrong.

He had taken a grandfatherly appearance - or rather it seemed like this had been his true appearance all along, his time as Sith Emperor only a dalliance, to get more power, all the while strengthening his true focus: the Eternal Empire.

Had it only been a mirror image that she had killed or tried to kill? Could he be at two places at the same time?

“You say you know me. If that is true you know the depths of my power. Whatever you hoped to achieve here, you know - deep inside - that you cannot succeed.”

It was the first error Valkorion made. Jiune felt it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, a flickering in the Force and she knew: she and Marr weren’t the only ones trying to eradicate him.

“But you do not have to stand against me. Instead…” he let Marr’s cuffs fall off, “you can kneel”, Valkorion said.

If the situation hadn’t been this dire, Jiune would have laughed. How could he even think for a second that she or Marr would bow to him?! It was his second error. His pride betrayed him.

“I will never again kneel to you!” Marr snarled.

“You would sooner die than acknowledge my superiority?” Valkorion asked.

“It is you who fears death, ‘Valkorion’. I do not. I will not kneel”, Marr threw back at him and Jiune closed her eyes. So it came to this after all. What followed was no surprise - but if she had for a few seconds even harboured the hope that Darth Marr could have succeeded, this hope was soon gone. The Emperor was stronger in this form, she realized as he sent an electrical surge out, a blinding lightning that made Jiune stumble backwards. She gasped, feeling Marr’s death before she even saw his lifeless form on the ground. A second of grief was all she allowed herself, before she steeled herself against Valkorion. Valkorion. Somehow the name made him seem less invincible as his title ‘The Emperor’, despite his obvious strength. But Jiune also knew that she wouldn’t be able to stand against him. Not here. Not now.

“Clear the room! Everyone out”, a hooded young woman called and Jiune turned to face Valkorion, walking towards him with a calm she hadn’t expected to feel. It seemed like all her fears were slowly falling away. When they were alone with Arcann, she told him:

“Marr actually gave your people real leadership. More than you ever did for them.”

Valkorion made a dismissive sound. “He was narrow-minded. Bound by irrelevant ancient dogma. But I think you are different.”

Jiune raised her chin in defiance.

“In all my centuries, you alone have merited my full attention. You leave your mark upon the galaxy wherever you act, just as I do.” It was all she could do not to tsk at him.

“Look around you”, Valkorion continued and she suspected he actually thought his voice to be seductive. Not in a sexual way but still. “Zakuul is poised to become the greatest civilization in the history of the galaxy. I have forged this empire to surmount all of my previous works. To span eternity.”

He finally came down from his throne to face her. “The Eternal throne commands a fleet more vast than any ever built. It has the power to reshape the galaxy into any image that I choose. That we choose.”

Jiune didn’t believe her own ears. Did he actually say ‘we’?

“I will share all this with you… if you will only kneel.”

Jiune blinked. He actually thought she would bow to him. His arrogance knew no end. She clenched her fists.

“‘Share’? You don’t share anything… you enslave. You devour. I will never be a part of that”, she threw in his face, disgust in her voice.

“So be it.” Valkorion seemed disappointed, but only for a second. Then he gestured at Arcann and turned his back at them.

Jiune straightened as Arcann came to stand before her, the familiar buzz of a lighsaber accompanying him. At least she would die as herself. Uncorrupted, as Shiwon would say, unflinching.

But the blow never came. Jiune looked at Arcann, waiting and for a moment he held her gaze. Then he blinked.

“You came here to defeat him - this is your chance!” he hissed and shattered her cuffs before throwing her lightsaber to her and attacking his father.

Arcann and Valkorion were fighting on the platform that held the throne, Valkorion countering Arcanns lightsaber with his bare hands.

“You don’t have ambition. You have only jealousy. This is why you fail”, Valkorion said, caught up so much in his sparring with his son that he didn’t pay attention to Jiune. And for once she did not bother to make him face her, even after he exerted another blast of energy to throw Arcann off. ‘Shiwon would be proud’, she thought as she stabbed Valkorion from behind, laying all her anger and grief in the blow.

“This is for all of the people you’ve forced to suffer and die”, she hissed.

But she hadn’t expected what followed next. “So be it”, Valkorion said - and laughed.

It was that laugh that made Jiune realize how bad it really was. Her heart clenched as she stumbled back, eyes wide. A powerful, dark energy gathered, flowing towards Valkorion and then blasted outwards, throwing Jiune back, surrounding her, and she felt something clawing at her mind just as the darkness and pain took her again.


	2. The Coldness of Five Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A cold that goes beyond carbon freezing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music: The One That Got Away by The Civil Wars

Apart from the visions Valkorion chose to show her, Jiune mostly remembered the cold. A dark, creeping cold seeping in, infusing every cell of her body, comparable to the freezing pain she experienced when she and Kira had become stuck in a snowstorm on Hoth. But while parts of her body had stopped hurting after a while in the snowstorm because they had gone numb, nothing stopped hurting now. It was as if tiny razor teeth grazed her slowly down to the bone.

Sometimes it was all she could think about, the immeasurable pain becoming so overwhelming that she only wished for it to end, to stop, to let her go.

Sometimes, she felt like there was only the tiniest thread left which bound her soul to her poisoned, frozen body but every time, something called her back. A vision. Valkorions claws. A thought: _I promised her_. A memory: _him looking at her_. Hope: _to see them again_. Knowledge: _there is something worth living for through all that pain._

And then she remembered. She remembered how she had once bested him. Remembered that dead and withered flower of fear and terror in her heart from which she had built a new life - a life, an iron will, an unbreakable resolve to make it right again, to succeed where she once failed. And she had done it. She could do it again.

_Emotion, yet peace.  
_ _Ignorance, yet knowledge.  
_ _Passion, yet serenity.  
_ _Chaos, yet harmony.  
_ _Death, yet the Force._

The pain became a part of her and she would’ve endured it to eternity if it hadn’t been for the warmth that had started to come back. It shifted something. She had gotten used to the cold pain but she was unprepared for it to get worse as life started seeping back into her. Every cell in her body seemed to fight a battle for survival and every nerve was on fire even when the darkness slowly surrendered to the light.

“Lana?”

Later, she couldn’t recall how she had managed to stay upright while she fled with Lana. She knew that in the moment she had focussed on the task ahead and only that. But it was when she heard that it had been five years since she had last been conscious and not the five days it felt like that she sealed the pain away.

_Ignorance, yet knowledge._

Ignoring every thought apart from what needed to be thought and done for what was directly in front of her, ignoring her pain, Valkorion’s voice, emotions. The thoughts, memories and hope that kept her alive during the carbon freezing by enabling her to rebuilt her resolve and iron will were now something she couldn’t afford to think about or she would have to think about all of it. It would mean facing pains worse than the residue of the carbon poisoning and she couldn’t let anything from her past interfere with her present or she would put everyone who had risked everything for her in danger. She held on to what she always considered part of her inmost soul: compassion and doing everything in her power to protect the innocent. It became a habit in the coming months and it kept her alive.

_Chaos, yet harmony._

She nearly faltered when she read Theron’s letter. “Whatever’s between us, I want you to know that I care about you. A lot.”

It took her breath away and something of the pain she refused to acknowledge came back - only a little bit but it was bad enough that she doubled over, a fist clenched to her heart, breathing nearly impossible. Five years. How do you just lose five years and resume your life when nothing is the same?

“Concern: Master? Is everything alright?” HK stood in the door.

Jiune concentrated on his cool, metal presence. Something from the present to focus on. Something to keep the pain at bay. She breathed, shallow first, then forcing herself to deep breaths and nodded.

_Emotion, yet peace._

“Yes. Thank you, HK.”

She looked again at the letter. No indication of when it had been written. It probably was years old - deep breaths - and no longer of importance. She’d answer it later. If there was an address she could answer to. She closed her mailbox.

She held conversations, even showed interest and sympathy and a part of her fell a little bit in love with Lana for the compassion and friendship the Sith showed her - something she was eternally grateful for. Every day she worked herself to her limits, so that every night she would barely make it to her bunk before she collapsed into dreamless darkness. She took every task available: searching for water, food, parts. She made a point of talking to the refugees they took in every day, showing them kindness and strength, asking after their lives, telling stories of the Jedi and their code, giving healing and hope and playing with the children. She planned with Senya and meditated with Lana, she practised battle techniques with HK-55 and lent Koth a hand with the never-ending repairs.

_Passion, yet serenity._

But mostly, she avoided herself. Sometimes, when sleep eluded her, she stared at Theron’s letter, unblinking, drinking in every word yet keeping every emotion down. She never answered it.

In retrospect, she was nearly thankful for the lightsaber blow Arcann dealt her in the Asylum battle. It was the first time something forced her to feel the pain that had been there for so long now. The nearly lethal blow made the pain physical, powerful and fiery. A heat that could act as counteragent to the cold she still had inside her, that thawed something she had forgotten was still frozen. A visible wound acting as a focus point for her reeling mind.

_Death, yet the Force._

For two days she struggled in the oblivion of unconsciousness, and while she knew that people like Koth - who knew that Valkorion was still alive in her mind and who wished he still was their Emperor - thought it was Valkorion who had kept her alive, that wasn’t true. It had been herself, fighting the fight against the coldness and grief which threatened to drown her. And finally winning.

She woke up.


End file.
